Fireblossom (48 page)

When Jeb Campbell had gone downstairs to eat supper, Graham did a little dance of joy round and round his hotel room.

* * *

Unable to convince Maddie to take the rest of the family and leave Deadwood until he could be certain all danger had passed, Fox decided to stay home and guard them all himself. It was a tricky situation, because neither he nor Maddie wanted any of the others to know that he had an enemy right here in Deadwood. So they told the family that he and Titus were waiting for a shipment of hardware to arrive before construction of the sawmill could proceed, which therefore left him a few days of leisure.

As it happened, Gramma Susan cooked a pot of potato soup flavored with bits of bacon and they all gathered around the long trestle table in the Avery kitchen for the noon meal. Stephen was feeling better and better, and today he took his lunch with the rest of the family, sitting between Sun Smile and Annie Sunday. Annie urged him to eat and to drink the tea with honey that she'd fixed for him. Maddie could only look on with amazement when he obeyed, docilely, blushing with pleasure at her attention. From across the table, Gramma Susan waggled her eyebrows up and down at her granddaughter, who smiled broadly in response.

For his part, Fox laughed at Benjamin's antics and chatted with the rest as though he hadn't a care in the world. Mention was made of a treaty on the verge of being ratified that would formally give up the Black Hills to the whites, and Fox repeated the news that Captain Jack Crawford had signed on as a scout for Crook. Then, in a lighter moment, Fox reported that Watson seemed to have made friends with Titus's new mule. Susan was passing around pieces of wild plum pie when the boom of a gunshot brought everyone up short. They all froze, waiting to see what would happen next.

In a gesture of tender gallantry, Fox pressed Maddie's trembling fingers to his mouth, looking at her steadily. "My darling, have faith," he whispered, then said to the family, "I'll see what's happened. I suggest that the rest of you remain here until I return." Rising, he smiled into Maddie's anxious eyes, kissed the top of his mother's head, and left.

He went out the back door, walked around the house, then checked through the pine trees. There he discovered a deranged-looking man standing in front of his house, clutching a shiny new six-shooter.

"Can I do something for you?"

Jeb whirled around at the sound of Fox's voice, his face simultaneously registering rage, glee, and terror. "Well, well, if it ain't ol' Major Matthews hisself! You been doin' pretty good for a yellow-livered coward, ain'tcha?"

"I'm not sure I'd put it quite that way," Fox remarked. As he stared at the man, his memory clicked and a grim smile touched his mouth. "Ah... It's Campbell, isn't it? How did you happen upon me here in Deadwood?"

Jeb shrugged. "Long story, and I ain't got a lotta time to waste with the likes of you. A squaw up at Slim Buttes told me about you bein' here. You musta done somethin' to make Miss Runs Away pretty durned mad, 'cause she's lookin' for yer hide, Major! When she tole me yer name, I knowed who you was. I seen you ride away that day at Little Bighorn..." He cocked the gun and pointed it at Fox. "Now then, you git me the money I asked for before. I ain't too happy about waitin' fer you last night and you not comin'! These past few weeks've been pretty nasty, what with killing Injins all over Montana and Dakota, eatin' my horse to stay alive, and then havin' to walk all the way into the Black Hills in a rainstorm. I had better things t'do last night then sit around waitin' on you!" Jeb paused to suck on his tooth, then spit out a stream of tobacco juice through the gap.

"Who put you up to this?" Fox asked.

"Don't know what yer talkin' about."

"Well, you'll have to tell your friend, whoever he is, that there won't be any money. I will not be blackmailed, Private Campbell."

Jeb turned redder and redder as he took in the refusal to pay. Clutching the revolver with both hands, he snarled, "Oh, you won't, huh? Then I'll just kill you, the way you shoulda been killed alongside Custer, and I'll take yer money—and I'll take that squaw yer hidin' here, too!"

"Would you really shoot an unarmed man?" Fox asked quietly, knowing the answer and yet oddly unafraid.

"Damned right I would! Cowards like you deserve to die. I'm doin' this town a favor!" Squinting at Fox through bloodshot eyes, he pointed the gun and prepared to pull the trigger.

Boom!
The rifle blast echoed through the canyon. Jeb Campbell dropped his gun, staring down as he watched blood gush from the place where his stomach had been.

Fox turned, expecting Stephen or even Maddie. Instead he saw Sun Smile holding Avery's rifle, her expression determined and satisfied as she surveyed the dead body sprawled across the yard. The others came rushing out of the house then, and when Maddie saw what had happened, she gave herself permission to weep with relief.

"At first we didn't even notice that she'd gone," she told Fox as he held her close. "We had gathered at the kitchen window, trying to see through the pine trees, and apparently Sun Smile slipped away, got the rifle from Father's bedroom, and went out the front door. We were horrified when we saw her at the edge of the trees, aiming the gun..."

"Sun Smile saved my life," Fox said, gazing at the Lakota woman. "Thank you."

"It was... justice, for my husband, for my people," she replied in careful English. It was the first time they had heard her speak a full sentence. "Now I can go home." She gave her father, Annie Sunday, and the others a bittersweet smile. "You have been good to me... but this is not home. I must be with my people."

Fox, meanwhile, was crouching next to the lifeless body of Jeb Campbell. He drew a gold pocket watch from the man's trousers and examined it carefully. The pieces were falling into place.

* * *

Everyone waited up for Fox that night, even though Maddie would have preferred to talk with him privately in their own home.

When he entered the Avery parlor, he found that a fire had been lit. Sun Smile, dressed in her soft, newly cleaned doeskin dress, with her hair plaited neatly into two long braids, wore a look of contentment. She appeared to be ready to depart immediately.

Benjamin, in his bathrobe, was jumping around the house like a monkey, excited by the drama yet furious that he had missed the actual spectacle of Sun Smile shooting the villain. However, when Fox came into the house, Susan collared her grandson and drew him down next to her on the settee.

Stephen greeted his son-in-law, while Annie Sunday restrained herself from rushing to him, and Maddie was glad when he took a wing chair and drew her down on his lap. The expression on his chiseled face told her that the danger was passed. More than anything else, she wanted to take him home to their bed.

"What happened?" They all seemed to speak at the same time, and Fox chuckled.

"I rousted out Seth Bullock, our new sheriff. He had a little trouble believing that Graham Horatio Winslow the Third could possibly have engineered all this, but he agreed to accompany me to Winslow's hotel room." He smiled as Maddie twined her arms around his neck and fussed with the curls that touched his collar. "I wish you all could have been there to see Mr. Winslow's face when he threw open the door and saw
me
standing there!"

"How did you prove that he was involved?" Stephen asked. "The pocket watch alone might be enough for us, but—"

"Well, I had showed Seth the blackmail note, pointing out that an illiterate weasel like Jeb Campbell could not possibly have composed such a letter. As it turned out, Winslow did the rest for us. The desk in the hotel room was littered with various versions of the note." Fox shrugged. "I'm sorry to report that the New Haven Winslows now have a blight on their impeccable family tree. Graham is in jail as we speak, awaiting transport to Yankton, where he will be tried for various crimes."

"When may I go?" Sun Smile asked softly.

Everyone turned to look at her. Stephen's eyes were poignant with regret. "Someone will have to take you," he said. "Do you want to go to the agency? I'm not certain what conditions are now; we have heard that rations have been held back until your people agree to relinquish the Black Hills. It's a terrible thing for our government to do, and I wouldn't want you to suffer, my dear...."

"The paper will be signed," she said. "Winter is coming. My people will have to trade this sacred ground for food. What choice have the whites given us?" Sun Smile was firm. "It is best that I go to the agency. I will be able to teach my people many white ways. Our lives are changed now... forever. It can never be again as it once was."

Everyone was silent for a short while, then Annie Sunday said, "Stephen, I think that we ought to share our news." She sounded almost shy. "Perhaps we can take Sun Smile ourselves...."

"Yes!" he cried, brightening. "An excellent notion, my dear!" Stephen rose, looked around the parlor, and said, "I want to announce to you all that Annie has done me the considerable honor of agreeing to become my wife. We intend to marry as soon as possible and then travel East for a wedding trip, remaining in Washington and Philadelphia through the winter."

After the chorus of surprised questions and congratulations had died down, it was agreed that Stephen and Annie would escort Sun Smile through the Black Hills to the Indian agency in northwestern Nebraska. From there they would continue on their way via riverboat and railroad. More discussion led to an invitation to Susan and Benjamin to join the newlyweds on this journey, but their refusals were immediate. Benjamin had new friends and—as Maddie pointed out firmly—should not miss school now that Deadwood had a teacher, and Susan stated flatly that she was too old for another arduous trip across America so soon after the one she'd made to Deadwood.

Changes were occurring so suddenly that Maddie felt dizzy. First the shock of Deadwood, and the challenge of getting to know her father all over again. Then she'd had to adjust to her new identity as Fox's wife, to the home she shared with him, and to the presence of Annie Sunday and Sun Smile. Now it seemed that so much was going to be changing yet again! When she and Fox rose to leave, and she bent to kiss her grandmother good night, Susan patted her cheek with a crinkled hand.

"We'll be fine here this winter, you and Fox and Benjamin and I." The old woman winked almost imperceptibly. "To tell you the truth, I'm rather looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet... and when those two come back from their wedding trip next spring,
I'm
going to move into that sweet little cottage!"

Maddie looked over at her father, realizing that the true cause of her anxiety was the fear left over from her childhood that he might
not
come back. Stephen's eyes met hers, begging her to come to him, and she did. Sitting in the circle of his arm, it came to Maddie what a tumultuous, confusing few weeks they have lived through since July. So much had been transformed since that first glimpse of Deadwood....

"Madeleine, your mother would be so proud of you if she were here," Stephen told her gently.

"I don't know—" Maddie flushed. "These days, I'm not very much like the lady she raised me to be, but I am much happier than I ever dreamed I could be before we left Philadelphia. It's not just because I'm in love with Fox. I'm happy because I finally realized that doing things properly and having things
look
the way they ought doesn't have very much to do with heart-deep happiness. I had to come to Deadwood to find that out."

"My dear, do you remember what you used to call me when you were a very little girl?" Smiling ruefully, he added, "You learned to be quite dignified at an early age, I realize, but perhaps you haven't forgotten...."

"Papa," she whispered thickly. "I used to call you Papa."

For a moment Stephen Avery's throat tightened so that he couldn't speak. "Yes, exactly. How I loved to hear you saying 'Papa,' and to see that light in your eyes, Maddie dear. Would you consider calling me that again, after Annie and I come home in the spring and we all settle in here for the rest of our lives?"

Eyes stinging, Maddie nodded. She realized suddenly that this was all about recapturing the innocent trust she'd known as a little girl. "Yes... Papa."

A short time later Maddie and Fox strolled through the row of pine trees to their own home. When she inhaled deeply, the force of joy that welled up from her very soul was so powerful that she had to stop a moment and close her eyes. Overhead, above Deadwood Gulch, the moon was still round and luminous, the sky thick with glittering stars.

Fox wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his cheek against her silky hair. "Someday, Fireblossom, I'm going to build you a wonderful house on this spot," he said in a low, compelling voice. "It will be a place where you can make dreams come true. We'll have a stone tower, and a music room, and polished paneled walls carved from exotic woods, and a bathtub painted with gold leaf that's big enough for both of us and has all the hot running water we want. You'll have a library all your own... and a big porch with a swing..."

Caught up in the dreamy tone of his voice, Maddie leaned back against him. "Don't forget the gardens," she teased.

"We'll import trees and flowers from the Kew Gardens in London," Fox promised solemnly.

"Do you know the best part of all?" Turning in her husband's embrace, Maddie leaned against the starched front of his favorite ticking-striped shirt.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me, love."

"The best part is that we'll be just as happy whether we have that house and garden and bathtub and porch swing or not. All we need is our feather bed and what we make together in moments like these."

"And we can go on making them forever," Fox finished. Under the stars, he lifted Maddie off the ground and held her thus for a full minute before capturing her mouth in a kiss that seemed even sweeter than the one before.

The End